". . . Interesting.  I'm simply a person with opinions, myself."

"Cool. So, obviously the mythology doesn't match super well, but, just in case, I recommend not hanging out in anywhere named 'Gethsamene' and, especially, not letting Judas kiss you there, lest he be intending to betray you to hostile authorities."

"I'll take that under consideration.  Out of curiosity, do you have any plans for publicizing your ability to resurrect stars among the living yet?"

"No, I am playing it super by ear, this world is incredibly confusing and that inhibits my ability to make confident decisions about things that are large and complicated. Do you have an opinion?"

"Well.  For complicated political and spiritual reasons I was already planning to provoke Rome into executing me, under circumstances I suspect will attract quite a lot of press.  It might make sense to move the timeline on that up half a year - you'd want to wait a few days to bring me back, so no one could reasonably say I hadn't really died - but since I'm starting with a moderate amount of fame and expect my death to direct yet more attention, it might be easier to spread the word that way than whatever else you might have planned.

Of course, this would in some sense set you against the Empire, which may be unstrategic.  But perhaps the opposite is true."

"...ah. A few days like, say, three?"

"I'd expect that to be sufficient."

"Okay. Uh. Are they going to nail you to a cross, I hear that's an awful way to go."

"That is one of a few ways it might be.  But if you conspicuously resurrect everyone the Empire tortures to death I have some hope that they'll torture fewer people to death."

"Are you at least planning to be high the entire time or something?"

"If feasible."

"Well, I'm sort of curious about the complicated political and spiritual reasons but perhaps we can cover those another time. In the meanwhile I want to buy Ellie and turn her loose, and I'll scale that up if I have reason to believe it won't cause, like, an empire-wide power outage, I don't know about here but at home that sort of thing is bad for people on ventilators or whatever."

"Like I said, I should be able to have someone meet you at the Londinium city hall in an hour.  How should I contact you if that falls through?"

"That's a good question. I will buy a phone on my way there and call you from it."

"Alright.  - I don't have any reason to think it'll come up, but if you speak to Judas or anyone else involved with me please don't mention my potential upcoming martyrdom.  Peace, foresight, and victory to you, Cam."

"- I'll take that under consideration," Cam mutters back. "Okay, I'm off to buy a phone and meet a friend of Jesus at the city hall, does Ellie need to be there in person or anything?"

"I should probably come along, yeah, especially since getting a phone also probably needs a legal identity and we can use mine for that at least?  Uh, that was quite a conversation to hear half of.  Not that I'm trying to pry."

"It was quite a conversation to BE half of. Presumably all will become clear at some point."

"Sorry."

"No big deal." Off to buy a phone and sell some things at a consignment shop or whatever.

Ellie proceeds to be visibly socially anxious as she accompanies Cam but can totally be a real person with a real address and such for getting-a-phone purposes.  The consignment shops will give him money without issue as long as he stays clear of the gemstones.

He will sell consignment shops musical instruments and clothes and shoes if they prefer! When he has enough money for one (1) Ellie he proceeds with her to city hall.

It takes kind of a lot; an Ellie is apparently pretty valuable.  Or maybe manumission is just disproportionately expensive.

(It occurs to Felicity midway through to check whether local hours match the ones Cam's used to.  It transpires they do, which is kind of weird since literally every other unit of time is different.)

Once they've accumulated another four or so motorcycles worth of cash: here's city hall!  It's mostly empty at present but there are a few loiterers on the atrium's granite benches and some staff members behind their counters and a number of business seekers talking with them or in various short lines.

Cam texts Jesus. This is Cam's new phone! Who am I looking for here?

He receives a picture.